ABSTRACT

The current state of the South African (SA) government's Supply Chain Management (SCM) is fraught with malpractices which include lack of good governance, fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective procurement process. In light of the aforementioned, this paper reports on a study which examined SCM performance, more specifically, procurement management in select provincial government departments in SA. The aim of this exploratory study on which this paper is written, is to determine how procurement planning, execution, control, and monitoring affect SCM performance. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaires which were personally distributed and collected by the primary researcher, from four Limpopo Provincial government departments which were purposively selected. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data.Generally, SCM performance in the various surveyed government departments is effective, although it became evident that the departments experience obstacles during the implementation of SCM processes and procedures. Furthermore, procurement planning is inadequate and needs improvement when the departments procure goods, services or works. Procurement execution was also found wanting, especially with regards to procurement governance.The results of this study may assist the participating departments to align their SCM and procurement practices to prescribed legislation in order to increase SCM performance, as well as achieve the objectives of good governance in terms of the Green Paper on Public Sector Procurement Reform in South Africa.

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore how to reduce printing at elementary schools through strengthening both the effective use of ICT and pro-environmental values. Literature review is presented in themes – ICT barriers (fears, knowledge, skills and time), demographic, printing behavior and sustainable values (egoistic, hedonic, prosocial & biospheric). A quantitative method is applied in this study, data is obtained from 108 teachers from seven elementary schools at three different regions in Northwest Friesland, The Netherlands by using a questionnaire. The value scale by De Groot and Steg (2008) is applied for sustainable values while for ICT barriers and printing behavior, questions are developed by the author and validated by Cronbach. The main findings illustrate that lower ICT fears and higher biospheric values have a positive effect on the pro-environmental printing behavior. To minimize teachers' ICT fears and printing, directors of the schools should train teachers in the use of ICT and enhance their biospheric values. This study is one of the first to explore ICT barriers with the combination of pro-environmental values orientation contributing pragmatic evidence to reducing financial and environmental costs.

ABSTRACT

In this paper we examine nine European stock market indices for indication of psychological barriers at round numbers. We test for uniformity in the trailing digits of the indices and use regression and GARCH analysis to assess the differential impact of being above or below a possible barrier. Despite having rejected uniformity for all data series, we only found significant psychological barriers in the stock markets of Germany, Finland and the Netherlands. Moreover, we document that the relationship between risk and return tends to be weaker at the proximity of round numbers which poses a challenge to the traditional equilibrium models.